14 students with HIV expelled from school in Indonesia

Fourteen students with HIV have been expelled from a public elementary school in Indonesia following demands from parents of other students, the school's headmaster and a local group that assists HIV-infected children said Thursday.

Karwi, headmaster of the Purwotomo Public Elementary School in the town of Solo in Central Java Province, said the students have not been allowed to attend the school since last week.

"The parents of other students are worried that the students would transmit the disease to their children," said Karwi, who likes many Indonesians goes by a single name.

Explanations from the school on how HIV is transmitted failed to convince the parents, who threatened to move their own children to another school if the school did not expel them.

The students had studied there since early last month after their previous Bumi Public Elementary School was combined with the Purwotomo school.

Puger Mulyono, founder of nongovernmental organization Lentera Foundation that shelters and otherwise assists children with HIV, said that in the previous school, the students did not face any problems, even though parents of other students knew they were HIV carriers.

The Solo Education Agency are now looking for another school for the students.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Five dead, 15 missing in Indonesia landslide

JAKARTA, Indonesia - At least five people have been killed and 15 are still missing after a landslide cascaded down the terraced slopes of a rice field on the Indonesian island of Java on Thursday, officials said.

The victims, farmers tending their crops in Brebes district, Central Java, were buried under an avalanche of mud and rock around 8:00 am (0100 GMT).

"The landslide buried the farmers working in their rice fields," disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.

The incident followed several days of heavy rain in the mountainous area, about seven hours east of the capital Jakarta.

Another 14 farmers were found with light injuries and have been taken to a nearby medical center for treatment.

Rescuers including the army, police and local volunteers are digging through debris to search for survivors, the agency said.

Residents have been forbidden from entering the area due to fears of further landslides.

"The soil is unstable, if it's raining, it could be dangerous," local sub-district head Apriyanto Sudarmoko told a national TV station.

"We also ask residents living near the site to vacate their homes until it’s safe."

Landslides are common in Indonesia, especially during wet season between October and April, when rain lashes the country.

Eight miners were killed on the slopes of Mount Merapi, an active volcano near the city of Jogjakarta, in December last year.

A month earlier at least 11 people died in heavy flooding and landslides in Pacitan, East Java.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

26 dead, 19 missing in Indonesian landslides, floods: official

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in Indonesia has risen to 26, an official said Thursday, with hopes fading for 19 others still missing.

Aid has begun pouring into Garut in the west of Indonesia's main island of Java, where 23 people died and 18 remain missing after torrential rain and fast-rising floods swept through the region, the national disaster agency said.

Receding flood waters revealed scenes of destruction, with houses reduced to rubble and upturned cars and debris strewn throughout muddy streets.

Among the dead or missing are more than a dozen children under 12 years of age, though several have yet to be formally identified, the agency said.

Relief teams and army personnel have moved into Garut to search for those still missing, while drones are assessing the scale of destruction from the air, disaster agency head Willem Rampangilei said in a statement.

"There is plenty of food and clean water available. The community is also helping out," Rampangilei said, adding that a disaster report had been sent to President Joko Widodo.

Temporary shelters and makeshift kitchens have been established to assist the estimated 430 people left homeless, with blankets and clothing being trucked in by emergency crews.

Elsewhere in West Java, emergency crews were still searching for one person missing in the wake of a massive landslide in Sumedang district that killed three others, disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

An avalanche of mud, rock and water tore through a village in Sumedang late Tuesday without warning, flattening homes and a mosque and burying people beneath rubble.

Landslides and flooding are common in Indonesia, a vast tropical archipelago prone to natural disasters and torrential downpours.

The country's disaster agency has warned people to be alert for disasters this wet season as a La Nina weather phenomenon threatens unseasonably heavy rain.

In June nearly 50 people died when heavy downpours sent torrents of water, mud and rock surging into villages in Central Java, another densely-populated province on Indonesia's main island.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com